Monsters vs Zombies
by Satine89
Summary: President Hathaway's mistake involving the buttons has been rectified... or so the monsters of Area 5X think. Turns out that, pardon the pun, the fallout of his actions will give the monsters their toughest fight yet!
1. Disaster Averted

_**One: Disaster Averted**_

The engineer finally placed the final bit of plating on the wall of the situation room, his beady eyes closing in relief. The other two people in the room looked just as relieved. Finally, they'd gotten rid of the last vestige of their biggest problem. The engineer stood up, black hair falling into his face, before nodding to the two government agents in front of him.

One of them was well-known throughout America: General W.R. Monger, the prickly but kind-hearted Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He watched the engineer intently, waiting for him to speak. The other was a woman with shoulder-length red hair, blue eyes, and a gangly body. She, the engineer realized with a jolt, was Monger's replacement as Commander of the US Army – Commander Emmeline McCleur, known for her decidedly harsh way of speaking and her warped logic. She was looking at her stubby fingernails, not paying much attention to the engineer.

"…Chairman?" the engineer murmured tentatively.

"Yes, Jimmy?" Monger immediately responded. Commander McCleur glanced up, vaguely interested, before her gaze returned to her nails.

"It's fixed. The coffee machine, I mean," Jimmy stammered, his green eyes darting all over the place. He hated being in the situation room. All of the engineers did. President Hathaway had really effed up everything in the place, from the electrical wiring to the big issue of the day, the two-button system that had almost sent the entire world plunging into nuclear holocaust. Why Jimmy had to be the one to dismantle the whole system and make a new coffee machine, he wasn't sure.

All he knew was that if this thing didn't work right, he was not only out of a job, but he'd be responsible for the second world-ending-disaster in a week.

Monger wandered over to the wall, where there were once two gigantic red buttons. Instead, there was now a small blue button and a recess into the wall, with a spout sticking out of the top. He smiled at the engineer, who clutched his chest in worry.

"Looks great, Jimbo!" Monger offered, noticing that Jimmy was on the verge of a mental collapse. Emmeline's eyes flickered up to Jimmy, and she let out a brief laugh, rough and loud.

"Gonna crap your pants, nerd?" Emmeline inquired viciously. Her voice was icy and smooth; in films, Jimmy recalled, an actress with that kind of voice would be considered sultry. Not that Jimmy found her sultry. He didn't. He, like everyone else, found her cynical and dangerously prepared.

Monger glanced over at Emmeline, who rolled her eyes in response. Picking up a coffee cup from the large table in the center of the room, Monger wandered over to the coffee dispenser and pressed the blue button. Jimmy winced.

It took a few seconds, but dark coffee soon squirted into Monger's mug. The aroma filled the air, and Jimmy breathed a sigh of relief. He'd done it. He'd fixed the problem. No more nuke-shooting button. No more near-disasters. No more need to overload the newly formed Monster Task Force division of Homeland Security. Jimmy couldn't help but smile.

Monger took a sip of his coffee as Emmeline raised an eyebrow, staring at Jimmy. "But how are we gonna launch nukes now?"

"We're not," Monger informed her.

"What if we _need them_?" Emmeline questioned, looking to the ground. She didn't seem pleased with this new, peaceful development in the US's weapons policy.

"We have the monsters," Monger responded.

Emmeline turned her glare to Jimmy, who jumped up. She waved her hand in his direction. "You're free to go."

Jimmy just stared blankly at her. She grit her teeth.

"Get _out_, nerd!" Emmeline shouted. Jimmy, tripping over the laces of his high-top sneakers, immediately bolted out of the war room, leaving his bag of tools behind him. Emmeline didn't notice until he'd left.

"_Wait!_ …Crap." Emmeline shook her head. Monger took another sip of coffee, staring at the blue button.

"…You don't like this whole 'monster' thing, do you, Ms. McCleur?"

Emmeline crossed her arms, fatigues rustling with the movement. "…That obvious, huh."

"They stopped the –"

"I know they stopped the nukes," Emmeline interrupted irritably. Her eyes widened, though, and she frowned. "It's just… they're not indestructible."

"…I hear you, Ms. McCleur."

"They won't be able to solve _all_ our problems."

"For now, they're doing a damn fine job of fixing things."

Emmeline's frown grew more pronounced. "Yeah, a better job than Hathaway would do."

Monger snorted into his coffee. "He's not as incompetent as you make him out to be."

"He's a good man, but a _terrible_ president," Emmeline snapped back. "…General, just… tell me the monsters'll have a break for a while."

Monger took another sip.

"Yes."

Emmeline relaxed a bit before grabbing another coffee mug off of the table, going to ready herself a cup of coffee.

A/N: So. This is the first chapter of my first MvA fic! This first chapter isn't very substantial – basically, it just introduces the OC and creates the time-frame of the story – but hopefully you all enjoy it. Reviews are appreciated 3

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Monsters vs Aliens!


	2. Cleaning Up Messes

_**Two: Cleaning Up Messes**_

Susan Murphy, aka Ginormica, had finally gotten used to her surroundings in Area 5X.

She wasn't quite sure when it had happened. Maybe it was after the monsters' mission to Paris, which was, regrettably, cut short by the threat of nuclear holocaust. Maybe it was when she landed back in Modesto, to realize that nothing she saw around her would ever truly be her home any longer, despite the fact that every human she loved lived there. Maybe it went back even farther – when she realized Derek was a useless egomaniac only interested in his career.

Whatever it was, Susan was glad to be back in Area 5X with her compatriots.

She tied her white hair back with a very large rubber band. Sitting in a giant metal chair in the center meeting room in Area 5X, she watched BOB and the Missing Link play cards, while Butterfly-saurus, as always, helped Link pull the wool over the blob's eyes, so to speak.

"You have any…" Link began, trailing off, fanning out his cards in front of him.

Butterfly-saurus stomped on the ground and sneezed.

"Kings?" Link suddenly asked.

"How do you keep _doing this?_" BOB asked incredulously, handing three kings over, stunned. Susan couldn't help but smirk.

Dr. Cockroach was nowhere to be seen, but Susan didn't doubt that he was making another invention somewhere. The days were largely predictable, but Susan was grateful for such a great group of friends. Usually, she'd join BOB and Link in playing cards, or she'd help the Doctor with his experiments. But today…

She'd been thinking a lot about their last mission: to get rid of the nukes President Hathaway had accidentally launched. And yes, the monsters had gotten rid of them, thanks to some clever reprogramming work on Dr. Cockroach's part and BOB grounding the nukes by using himself as a gigantic gelatinous net. But… Susan couldn't shake the feeling that it'd been too easy.

She'd already worried about how the radiation from the nukes would affect the monsters, but, according to the scientists at Area 5X, all the radiation did was make Susan's hair grow longer. Susan wasn't sure she completely trusted them, though. Radiation did nasty things to people; she'd watched all the videos on World War II in high school, just like everyone else in her graduating class. Signs of sickness didn't show up for years.

And there was the matter of _where_ they'd finally managed to safely detonate the nukes: right over Modesto. It wasn't the most brilliant idea the monsters had, but it was the only option at that point in time. Susan glanced to the ceiling, up at the giant halogen light above her, letting her mind wander away from her.

"…Susan?"

Susan jumped up a bit before looking down at her hand. It was just the Doctor, standing on her hand, blinking his wide eyes at her.

"Are you all right, my dear?"

_My dear._ He had a habit of calling her that. Charmed, Susan couldn't help but smile.

"…I'm good," Susan assured him. "Just… thinking."

His expression darkened, much to Susan's surprise. "…You too?"

"…What's up?" Susan asked, glancing over to the card game. BOB was, once again, amazed that Link had managed to take three of his eights. Butterfly-saurus really enjoyed this game, if his joyous cooing was any indication. Susan redirected her attentions to Dr. Cockroach.

"The nuclear weapons."

"Me too," Susan admitted. "Something's… just not right."

"Precisely." Dr. Cockroach paused, biting his lip. "…If it affected your molecular structure, with all the Quantonium in it, I can't _imagine_ what else it might've done that the scientists haven't found."

Susan gulped. So she wasn't the only person worried. And the Doctor, without question, was the smartest person she knew. If he was having second thoughts… Susan began to feel worse than before.

"Do you think they'll listen to us?" Susan asked.

"I doubt it."

Susan rolled her eyes, lifting her hand up unthinkingly. Dr. Cockroach squealed a bit, and Susan quickly grabbed him with her other hand, placing him on the armrest of her chair.

"Sorry about that," Susan apologized. "…We need to tell them about this, though."

"The government is busy celebrating the fact that the whole world didn't blow up," Dr. Cockroach pointed out. "Somehow I think the staff here will be very appreciative of a vague idea we share."

The Doctor had a point, Susan thought, sighing. They had no evidence. No real theories. Just a nagging sense of unease.

"…Maybe we're wrong," Susan offered.

"I hope so," Dr. Cockroach murmured, looking over to the card game, where Butterfly-saurus was roaring ecstatically.

x - x

Katie couldn't believe what she was about to do.

Somehow, Cuthbert had convinced her to give him another chance. She neglected to tell him how much she loathed his effeminacy, his cowardice, and, worst of all, his total lack of sex appeal, but she couldn't deny that hearing his voice over the phone made her heart flutter, just as it had before that disastrous date with the robot.

The robot ruined everything, Katie realized as she stepped out the door of her house. It was on the outskirts of Modesto, surrounded by plains and empty fields. The nearest building was an out-of-business gas station, for God's sake. Katie, brushing a strand of brown hair out of her face, walked down her white porch steps, wandering into the driveway, where her beloved Lincoln Towncar waited for her.

It was just a meeting at the local Starbucks, Katie told herself. Don't get excited.

As Katie unlocked the door to her car, she glanced at herself in the window's reflection. She looked… okay, she decided. Her hair looked nice, but her pink blouse looked super-girly. God, why didn't she see it earlier? It looked terrible in the harsh Modesto sun. At least it matched the jean skirt, she thought, resigned.

_When Cuthbert sees me looking like this, he'll wonder why he wanted me back, _Katie thought dejectedly. Okay. So she wanted to get back together with him. She wasn't about to admit it to anyone, but despite all of Cuthbert's flaws, she found herself attracted to him. Still. Inexplicably.

_Pop._

Katie cocked her head confusedly, eventually deciding the noise was her car door, and moved to open it.

_Pop pop._

Okay, that definitely wasn't her car door. Katie glanced behind her, at the garage. Nothing. Her house looked normal, too… with a gulp, she glanced at the field across the street.

Something was wiggling in the dirt, making popping noises.

Katie stared at it for a few seconds. If she went to check it out, she'd be really late for her… not-date… with Cuthbert. But… there was something weird going on. Her innate curiosity got the better of her, and she darted across the deserted street, trudging through fields of wild grass, trying to get to the wiggling popping thing.

As she drew closer to it, she noticed it was purple, with suction cups all over its various wiggling tentacles. It looked like a plant – just a giant bunch of tentacles sticking up out of the ground. Katie walked directly to the purple plant, stretching out her hand to touch it –

_Pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop._

Katie's eyes widened as she turned around slowly. She was suddenly surrounded by purple tentacle plants, all wiggling, all covered in suction cups, and, upon closer examination, all seemingly rotting.

She stepped backwards, onto one of the plants. In an instant, a giant purple thing shot out of the ground, flipping Katie onto her back. She closed her eyes as her head hit the ground, wincing in pain, not wanting to look. It was the robot finding all over again…

Katie finally opened one eye, squinting.

And she screamed.

x – x

A/N: So here's chapter two. I really loved Katie as a character, and bringing her back to discover yet another weird thing… well, poor Katie just doesn't have any luck, does she? Thanks to everyone who's read so far!

DISCLAIMER: I don't own MvA.


	3. A Problem?

_**Three: A Problem?**_

"Can't we go _a WEEK_ without some kind of _DISASTER?_"

President Hathaway didn't expect Commander McCleur, General Monger's distaff counterpart, to be thrilled about the latest headline news, so he tuned her out, staring at the tabletop in front of him, blowing a piece of brown hair out of his face. He knew this one was bad. Really bad. If Katie Brownstone, the media's informant, was telling the truth, everyone in the situation room at that moment was screwed.

The Commander tied her hair up in a tight bun, glaring at Hathaway as Miss Ronson placed a coffee mug in front of her uneasily. Sitting beside the infuriated soldier was that nerd guy that Hathaway never bothered to learn the name of, tittering.

"Got something to say?" McCleur spat, redirecting her ire towards the balding informant. He, obviously not knowing what McCleur was capable of, continued tittering, rolling his eyes at her.

"If you had just listened to me about the dangers of Operation: Destruction –"

"_YOU DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING IN THAT MEETING! I HAVE THE MINUTES!"_ McCleur shrieked. She leapt for the coffee mug, taking a deep draught of it.

At the other end of the table, Monger turned to President Hathaway, who was too busy staring at Commander McCleur to notice.

"…Mr. President, sir," Monger finally said.

"What?" He whipped around, adjusting his glasses as he focused on Monger.

"How can we have a meeting about a zombie problem if there's no evidence of zombies anywhere near where Miss Brownstone sighted them, sir?" Monger wondered.

"That doesn't mean anything," the irritating aide pointed out.

"Didn't Miss Brownstone find the robot…?" another aide asked, flipping through a binder of information.

"The media wants a comment," Miss Ronson warned those seated at the table.

"They always do," McCleur intoned coldly, eyes darting back to Hathaway.

"What do we say?" a female PR woman asked.

"What's there to say?" Hathaway offered.

"We don't know anything," the balding informant told him. "Or _you_ don't know anything, I should –"

"Send someone to investigate the area," Monger interrupted, directing the statement to McCleur.

McCleur stood up from the table. "I'll do it myself, sir."

"Thanks, Ms. McCleur."

Hathaway shook his head uneasily. Commander McCleur… well, she was special, in her own way. The forces couldn't afford to lose her. "Don't do anything stupid."

"I'm not you," McCleur countered with a grim face before trudging up the staircase to the exit.

Hathaway rolled his eyes. Oh, she was special, all right.

"Okay. So… statement to the press?"

x - x

Susan and the Doctor decided to join the go fish game today, mostly to distract themselves from their growing unease. They suspected that Link was beginning to feel it, too, if his decision to play the game without cheating was any indication. Butterfly-saurus, depressed by this turn of events, decided to practice his new killer move, creating a giant gust of wind with his wings. He'd blasted two full tornadoes into the far wall successfully, but he was beginning to have trouble with the technique.

"Okay, Susan… do you have any fours?" BOB asked.

"…No, BOB," Susan said with a smile, despite the fact that BOB asked her that last turn. And the turn before that. And the turn before that…

BOB drew a card as a mechanical click echoed throughout the meeting room. Susan immediately turned, seeing a tiny Jeep flying into their enclosure.

"Chairman Monger?" Susan questioned.

The card table was immediately abandoned as all the monsters, including Butterfly-saurus, gathered around the vehicle. Monger jumped out of it, using his jet pack to fly up to Susan's level.

"Susan, this is going to sound a bit strange, but I need a strand of your hair," Monger opened with.

Susan blinked, but yanked a hair out of her head, wincing as she handed it over. Monger folded the long piece up and, floating down to the ground, he turned to the other monsters.

"Monsters, I hate to tell you this, but… we think we've got a problem."

x – x

A/N: I freaking love President Hathaway. I don't see him a lot in MvA fanfic, so I figured I'd rectify that. Slightly. (shrug)

A/N 2: I'm gonna be gone for the weekend, so don't expect another update until Monday or Tuesday!

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Monsters vs. Aliens.


	4. A Problem

_**Four: A Problem**_

Emmeline stared at the torn-up field around her, trying to catch any visual clues in the soil. There wasn't much. For all intents and purposes, it looked like dirt. She unbuttoned her black coat absentmindedly, recalling that most human beings didn't wear jackets in Modesto during the summer.

She didn't really care. Her mind was elsewhere.

_Why didn't I just say 'I won't'? _

She kneeled down in the dirt, getting a closer look. A piece of hair fell out of her tightly wound bun, into her eyes, as she inspected one particular clump of soil. There was something weird about it. Every once in a while, it seemed to flicker a strange orange color, but Emmeline wasn't sure if that was just in her imagination.

She had to find _something_ here. She really wanted to believe Katie Brownstone – Emmeline believed her back when she said she'd sighted a gigantic robot probe, in the middle of that dark night when nothing made sense.

Emmeline picked up a piece of this weird dirt, blue eyes narrowed, focused.

_If this piece of dirt kills me…_

It flickered orange.

Emmeline immediately dropped it, digging into her cargo pants pocket, looking for – there it was, a vial. Putting on a rubber glove, Emmeline dropped a piece of dirt into the vial before sealing it up with an airtight plug. She shoved it back into her pants pocket, kneeling even closer to the dirt.

There was something weird going on here, she just knew it. Dusting aside some of the tilled dirt, she began to noticed little holes, boring down into the earth.

As she leaned towards them, a purple tentacle shot out at her head, sticking to it.

Emmeline shrieked, immediately drawing a pistol out from inside her coat and blasting the tentacle wide open. It exploded, showering rotting skin and other disgusting viscera on the Commander. She ducked downward, not moving for a few seconds, before picking up a piece of the tentacle's skin, singed by gunfire.

_Oh HELL no._

Emmeline quickly procured another vial, dropping the skin flake in it. She noticed that, after a few seconds, it flickered orange, just like the dirt. It only confirmed her theory.

The media was saying "zombies". Katie Brownstone had said "zombies". Emmeline McCleur reasoned that both of them were right… in a way.

But they weren't your normal garden-variety zombies.

Striding away from the field and towards the abandoned gas station on the other side of the road, Emmeline disposed of her rubber glove and pulled out a cell phone, pushing one button a little harder than necessary.

"…Hey. It's me. …I'm all right, dear. …You know I… Please, we'll talk about that… this is… _Listen!_" She paused. "Tell General Monger to call me. This… this thing is _bad._" Another pause. "Yes, of course, tell _him_ too. …I… this is important, Kevin!" She sighed. "…I love you too. But dear -?" Pause. "…Okay. Yes. I'll be back soon."

She hung up, smiling stupidly, a diamond on her ring finger catching the light. Ah, her fiancé… But then she remembered – oh yeah.

Alien zombie infestation.

The color drained from Emmeline's face.

x - x

"Zombies."

Link had been staring at the wall for the past hour, just like Susan, the Doctor, and BOB. Butterfly-saurus had wandered back into his enclosure, too confused by Monger's words to contribute.

"…This is worse than I thought," Dr. Cockroach opined.

Susan shook her head, patting him on the back with her index finger. "It's not your fault. Who knows where the zombies came from?"

"They're just covering bases," Link agreed, though his heart didn't seem to be in it.

BOB blinked, his one eye floating around aimlessly. "…I don't get it."

"What?" Susan asked.

"Why did they take your hair?"

The Doctor sighed. "Remember when they did the tests on us, BOB?"

"No," BOB answered truthfully.

"…They're running tests on Susan, to see if she's irradiated," Dr. Cockroach said, glancing up at the fifty-foot-tall woman. Susan, in the same moment, looked down at him. She sighed lightly.

"Why?" BOB asked.

"…I don't know," Susan lied. She knew perfectly well why Monger took her hair. They probably suspected that radiation from the nukes had something to do with the zombies.

So she'd been right.

x - x

"Jesus."

"I know."

Monger stared at the flickering piece of purple tentacle matter in the vial, rooted to the floor of the situation room. Hathaway had taken to pacing the floor as soon as he saw the evidence. Emmeline didn't move her gaze away from the floor, face pallid. A scientist was lurking nearby, just as pale as Emmeline.

"It… wrapped around your head?" Hathaway asked.

"No, just smashed against it," Emmeline explained. "I… shot it."

_Not surprising,_ Hathaway thought with a bit of a smirk before remembering – oh yeah. The end of the world. Again.

"There's a ridiculous amount of Quantonium in the skin cells," the scientist, a dark-skinned woman, explained when she finally collected herself.

Monger's eyes widened. "Sweet baby Jesus, this isn't good."

"Alien zombies," Hathaway muttered, as if he couldn't believe it.

"…In laymen's terms, yes," the scientist said, voice shaking.

Emmeline turned whiter. "We have to get this contained -"

"- Before the media finds out," Hathaway finished for her.

"Monsters?" Monger offered.

Hathaway nodded, but Emmeline hesitated, biting her lip. Monger didn't say anything, recalling their earlier conversation.

Finally she nodded.

x – x

A/N: So here's part four. It's a transitional chapter, not gonna lie about it. And we're introduced to Kevin, who ends up playing a major role in this story towards the end. (OMG spoiler? Should I have not said that? XD) Anyway, constructive crit is always welcome!

DISCLAIMER: I don't own MvA.


	5. Preventative Action

_**Five: Preventative Action**_

Susan hated being cooped up in the military planes, going wherever the action took them. But she couldn't remember a time where she'd felt worse.

Dr. Cockroach had been right. Something had gone horribly wrong. Apparently, according to Monger, there was a large possibility that there were radiation-driven alien zombies just outside of Modesto. Sure, Susan had expected some sort of mishap, but nothing like this. Evidently, the President hadn't, either, as he'd gone into full curling-up-into-a-ball mode, if Monger was to be believed.

Susan might've been more comfortable if Monger had been in the plane with her and the others at that moment. Instead, their commanding officer for this mission was one Commander McCleur, a female firebrand who had spent most of her time twiddling her thumbs. BOB was trying to mimic her, but he wasn't getting very far.

Link, leaning against the opposite wall, finally spoke. "Alien zombies."

"Indeed," Dr. Cockroach responded, from Susan's left. Susan buried her face in her hands.

"…I'm sorry about this."

Susan peered out between her fingers to see McCleur standing up, arms at her sides. She was staring off into space.

"It's not your fault," Susan responded.

"Well, kind of. If we hadn't gone looking for anything, you guys would be having a well-deserved rest right now," McCleur noted, crossing her arms.

"…Really, it's fine," Link assured her.

Susan nodded. It would be selfish of them to ignore a threat to the world, just for a few days off. McCleur still looked uneasy, and glanced off into space again. The giant woman bit her lip. Monger was a lot more gung-ho than McCleur, but Monger had specifically designated McCleur to accompany them. Susan had heard stories about how vicious and cold the female commander was, but she wasn't seeing any of that in that moment.

"So… zombies in Modesto," Link reiterated.

"I think it's obvious what happened," Doctor Cockroach spoke up.

"Modesto's cursed?" BOB offered.

"That's a definite possibility," McCleur laughed coldly to herself before her gaze fell to the floor. Susan blinked. So _that_ was the coldness Monger was talking about…

Dr. Cockroach was less amused. "The excess radiation that leaked out of the nukes we stopped reanimated the dead Gallaxhar clones from the ship explosion."

"That's a definite possibility," BOB repeated, trying to sound impressive. The effect was lost when he got distracted by a dust mite in the air and stared, awed, at it.

McCleur sighed. "…I'm sorry this all has to happen to you now. It's… very inconvenient for all of us."

Susan couldn't help but notice how conflicted McCleur looked as she paused.

"Especially you all," McCleur finished, something on her hand catching the light. Susan's wide eyes grew wider – that explained a lot, if that shiny thing was what she thought it was…

The plane began to slide into a descent. McCleur clung to the side of the plane, a smile finally creeping onto her lips.

"But we'll get this taken care of as fast as we damn well can," McCleur said. "Right, monsters?"

"Right," Link responded, grinning as well.

"Yeah!" BOB cried giddily.

The plane was descending fast now. Susan clamped her hands over her ears, trying to stop the popping sensation. The hatch doors swung open, and Susan gasped.

The whole stretch of field below the plane was coated in purple.

Dr. Cockroach blanched. "Is that…?"

"We're going in!" McCleur shouted, running down the length of the plane and jumping out, pulling a parachute cord. As she moved, Butterfly-saurus flew near them, as if waiting for the rest of the monsters to jump on. Susan and the Doctor exchanged wary glances while Link and BOB leapt out of the plane happily.

"We'll fix this, my dear," the Doctor assured her before running to catch up with the others. Susan could only smile and follow him headlong into the abyss.

x - x

Katie Brownstone was having a hard time believing that nothing was happening. Looking at her perfectly manicured nails in the low lamplight, she ran through the traumatizing events of a few days' prior in her head once more. How many people did she have to tell before there was some sort of action? There were mutant flesh-eating zombie plants out there!

It seemed like a no-brainer to the recent high-school graduate, and she'd become a media darling, true. But all Katie cared about was killing all those… monstrosities. And Katie knew that the government had a whole cadre of monstrosities to deal with things like this.

So why was nothing happening?

Normally, Katie would blame the President. It was the popular thing to do, after all. But this went deeper. And the only way to really bring attention to it was to bring out the big guns.

Thankfully, one of the 'big guns' lived in her rinky-dink town.

A knock at the door roused Katie from her reverie.

"Yes?" she asked, swiveling around in her office chair. This dressing room sure was nice, she thought, glancing at the taupe walls as the door opened.

Derek Dietl, head anchor for Channel 8 Los Angeles's nightly news, poked his head into the room, hair perfectly coiffed.

"You're on in five. Ready to go?" he asked.

Katie smirked. "Of course."

Katie rose from her chair, straightening her knee-length khaki skirt. They'd have to pay attention to her now. They'd just have to.

x - x

A/N: I tried working the ensuing scenes into this chapter, but the pacing got very thrown off. I apologize for its shortness. Also, expect quicker updates from now on – I had a very busy week last week XD

DISCLAIMER: I don't own MvA. At all.


	6. Field of Death

_**Six: Field of Death**_

"This is eerie."

Susan, along with the rest of the monsters and Commander McCleur, stood at the edge of the Modesto fields, staring into a sea of gently wafting tentacle plants. All of them were visibly distressed; none of them, not even McCleur, had expected there to be that many zombies forming after barely a day. Butterfly-saurus towered over all of them, fur rustling in the slight breeze.

"They're growing at a rapid pace," Dr. Cockroach said, amazed.

"There were _none_ above ground yesterday." McCleur confirmed the other monsters' suspicions, pulling out a handgun and loading it casually. "Okay, we need some sort of plan. I'm more of a shoot first and ask questions later person, but obviously that's not going to get rid of _a billion zombies._"

Susan crossed her arms worriedly. "I only have super-strength…"

"I could pick the flowers," BOB offered.

"They aren't flowers, BOB," Link told him with a grimace. He was in the same boat as Susan.

McCleur's face soured. "We have to do _something._"

The six stood in silence for a long time, staring, as if hypnotized, at the field of purple. McCleur finally sighed.

"Okay, I have an –"

But BOB dashed into the field, intent on playing with the tentacles. Link immediately darted after him. McCleur shrieked some nonsense words before cocking her pistol and taking off, Dr. Cockroach not far behind. Susan immediately got into high gear and ran into the field, immediately feeling a tentacle latch onto her ankle. She kicked it off and stomped on it, orange-pulsing ooze coating her left foot. She shrieked.

"What's going on, Ginormica?" McCleur shouted over the din. A zombie had shot out of the ground, and its malformed head was hurtling towards the redheaded commander. With a shock, McCleur noted its resemblance to that other alien leader that had threatened to take over weeks ago. She shot it in the face, viscera splattering onto the ground. The noise drove three more zombies out of the ground.

"How many of these things _are there?_" Link yelled. He'd managed to knock out a few of the flying zombies, but they were coming in waves. There was no way they'd be able to eradicate all of them.

Dr. Cockroach ran up Susan's arm as she yanked a zombie out of the air and used her strength to squeeze it into submission. The Doctor ran onto the cold-cocked zombie, inspecting it as Susan attempted to run out of the patch.

Butterfly-saurus made a loud, raspy noise, shooting a blanket of web-like snot onto a large section of the zombie tentacles. Though they were immobilized for a few seconds, the snot proved easy to break through. BOB watched all this, awestruck, not moving at all. A zombie tentacle attempted to sucker him underground, but his gelatinous skin refused to move under any circumstance. The tentacle eventually gave up.

Another gunshot. McCleur turned to see Susan running off. "_WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" _

"Doctor Cockroach is looking at – EAYAUGH!" Susan squeezed the zombie again, as it threatened to shoot a tentacle into her eye. It immediately fell limp again, and the Doctor resumed his inspection, eyes widening with every second.

"We have to retreat!" Link yelled to McCleur. "We can't beat them like this!"

McCleur agreed, but the zombies were shooting out of every available space in the field. Things were getting out of hand. Normally, she'd suggest that only nukes could diffuse a situation like this, but that was _really_ not an option at this point. She emptied her clip into a particularly vicious zombified alien corpse, wanting nothing more than to escape from the hellish field.

BOB had wandered off, evidently bored with the whole situation. Susan looked at him sternly.

"BOB! What are you _doing?_"

"That purple thing in your hand is really cool," BOB said.

"Thanks!" Susan said, not really meaning it, trying to keep the body steady. Link had managed to hurtle out of the field, glancing behind him, shouting for McCleur, who barreled out seconds later, a large bloody gash forming on her cheek.

"Are we taking it home with us?" BOB asked.

Butterfly-saurus lumbered over, and Link immediately jumped on its back. Susan looked down at Dr. Cockroach, who nodded.

"Sure," Susan answered BOB as she climbed onto Butterfly-saurus. McCleur jumped on as well, pulling out her gun and, without warning, smashing the butt of the pistol into the alien's head. Its eyes opened in shock before its pupils dilated. McCleur holstered the gun, yanking BOB onto the large fluffy butterfly.

It immediately took flight, soaring away from the zombie field, which had grown still again. Susan stared down at Modesto, still holding the immobilized alien.

"…This isn't good," Susan breathed.

McCleur was also staring down at the ground below her. "…You're telling me."

x - x

The phone rang.

Hathaway tumbled out of bed, groping for his glasses on the bedside counter. He was fairly certain that no one should be calling him at whatever hour this was. He looked at the clock to be sure, once he'd thrown his glasses on. Yep, no one should be calling at three a.m.

He heard the phone ring again. Stumbling across the darkened White House bedroom, he finally happened upon his cell phone, picking it up uneasily.

"…Hello?"

"Hathaway, wake up. It's McCleur."

Hathaway paused. "…Emmeline?"

"How many McCleurs do you know?" She was pissed. Even half-asleep, Hathaway could tell that. He ran a hand through his hair, trying desperately to wake himself up.

"Hey. Is… are you all right?"

"Don't worry about me."

"But I –"

"Turn on the TV. Fox News. MSNBC. Any news – just –"

Hathaway did as he was told while McCleur degenerated into spluttering rage. Turning on the small screen balancing on his dresser, he eventually settled on CNN, and the images he saw told him all he needed to know.

Katie Brownstone, dressed impeccably, was talking to Derek Dietl, the Los Angeles area's most beloved news anchor. About the zombie-aliens. And how the government wasn't doing anything.

"…Oh my God," Hathaway muttered into his cell phone, leaning against a wall. He was awake _now_.

"…I know." She sighed irritably, a rush of static reaching his ears. "Apparently it's been like this since eight."

"How did we not -?"

"Massive monsters-versus-zombies attack failure?"

"Oh. Right."

McCleur let out another sigh. Hathaway couldn't blame her.

"…We have nothing until Doc and the scientists finish analyzing the body," McCleur pointed out, more talking to herself than the President. "We _can't_ do anything."

"…Are you sure we can't do anything?"

McCleur grew silent as a smirk curled onto Hathaway's face.

"What're you thinking?" McCleur finally asked darkly.

"…Are you in the situation room?"

"Yes… what're you thinking -?"

"I'll be there in five."

"I –"

Hathaway hung up on McCleur, knowing he'd pay for it later. Later being in five minutes. But he had an idea. If he came out looking like an idiot, the media would likely pounce on that.

And that would buy them some time. He could care less what the media said about him. They were always proven wrong, anyway.

x – x

A/N: I have to talk about "the tentacle eventually gave up", because, believe it or not, it was one of the first scenes I wrote for the story. The main idea – zombie aliens vs. our team of monsters – came to me rather boringly. I was watching "Dawn of the Dead", and I went, "huh. Zombie aliens." (Thrilling, I know.) At that time, the whole fic I was going to write was that a zombie set out to attack BOB, but couldn't, because he kept regrowing his gelatinous parts. "The tentacle eventually gave up" was the last sentence in that original outline. After a day, I worked in that the nukes made this zombie possible, and then Hathaway and Monger got thrown in, and that necessitated the creation of a new Army general to replace Monger – hello, McCleur – and that led to introducing the other monsters, and suddenly I needed a much bigger plot.

Story time over.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own MvA.


	7. The Body

_**Seven:**_ _**The Body**_

The dark-skinned scientist, Doctor Vienna Sanders, leaned over the catatonic zombie body. It was rotting at an alarming rate, orange pulses of light traveling along its skin to try and stop the disintegration. Vienna had never seen anything quite like it, and, frankly, it was making her a bit ill.

Beside her, the Area 5X resident doctor, Dr. Cockroach, stared down at the body, watching the orange sparks with intense interest.

"Do you still have the samples that Commander McCleur collected?" he asked Vienna. Vienna jumped a bit – she wasn't used to people talking to her while she worked. The Area 6X building, the CIA's top secret scientific laboratory, was, for the most part, silent. The pristine lab room the two doctors occupied had been still for a long time.

"Of course, Doctor," Vienna responded, walking to a cabinet on the far wall. A biohazard label glared at the female, warning her of the dangerous material inside. Vienna ignored it, taking out two labeled vials, one of dirt, one of skin flakes. She handed them to Dr. Cockroach, returning her gaze to the body.

"I ran scans on it," Vienna said, beginning to babble. She did this a lot – once the silence was broken, she found herself talking endlessly, saying useless or repetitive information. "It doesn't have a heartbeat, brainwaves, nothing. The only thing keeping it alive is whatever that orange sparking is, and –"

"Can I open this?"

Dr. Cockroach was pointing to the vial of dirt. Vienna raised an eyebrow, unsure of what that would accomplish, but nodded. Staring at the zombie, and the wires injected into its body, the Doctor slowly unscrewed the vial's cap. Vienna could tell he had an idea; he was grinning maniacally, which was all the evidence she needed. Vienna tossed a black curl of hair behind her shoulder.

He dumped the dirt on the zombie. Immediately, the body began to glow orange. A heart-rate monitor began to beep at regular intervals. Vienna whipped around as Dr. Cockroach's eyes widened.

"What did you do?" Vienna asked breathlessly, hearing a brain-wave monitoring machine click and whir, coming back to life.

Dr. Cockroach inhaled shakily. "Well, that's how the zombies are powered." He paused. "By irradiated dirt."

x - x

"Dirt?" Susan questioned, once Dr. Cockroach was back in the Area 5X meeting room. She was playing with her hair, which was now past her shoulder blades. She was convinced that, every once in a while, it would glow orange, although Link was certain she was just imagining things. As he'd informed her, he'd seen glowing orange things for hours after the giant zombie-alien melee, since all of those weirdoes were sparking orange every few seconds. Susan gave in and believed his explanation, though she didn't completely buy it.

The Doctor nodded. BOB, as usual, was zoning out, not really paying attention to what was going on, but Link, Butterfly-saurus, Susan, and Monger were all paying rapt attention to what the Doctor said.

"So the environment is...?" Link began.

"Reanimating alien corpses," Dr. Cockroach finished dejectedly.

"…That's not good," Link finally responded, after a few moments of silence.

"Do we have any options?" Susan asked Monger.

He shrugged, as troubled as the monsters. "…We could blow up Modesto."

Susan turned green.

"Which we aren't going to do," Monger hurriedly assured her. "We are NOT going to blow up Modesto."

There was a silence.

"…That's the only option?" Link asked.

"The only one that will for sure work," Monger informed them.

"We don't know how these zombies are killed," Dr. Cockroach took over. "If they're separated from the fields, they'll begin to rot and collapse, but none of them are moving."

"We could leave them there," BOB offered, suddenly injecting himself into the conversation.

Link snapped. "…What about grenades?"

"We are _not blowing up Modesto,_" Monger stressed.

Susan had been thinking the whole time, pondering a few things. The lab results from her hair hadn't come back yet. It was randomly sparking orange for split seconds. The ground sparked orange in Modesto. The aliens were powered by orange sparks lollygagging down their bodies. And though they were definitely immobilized by gunshot wounds, as demonstrated by trigger-happy Commander McCleur, they were also immobilized, according to the Doctor, by straying too far from the field.

"We could try and lure them all away from the fields," Susan offered.

Link grinned. "Of course -!"

"Where?" Monger asked.

Susan thought before coming to the same conclusion Monger had – Modesto led into another densely populated city. There was nowhere safe to lure the zombies, except for another irradiated field. She frowned.

And then she gasped.

"Doctor!" she exclaimed. "I have an idea."

Monger smirked. "Now we're talking."

x – x

A/N: I know that this is extremely late in arriving. I just moved back into my dorm and was wrapped up in planning stages for my next major fanfiction project, in addition to finishing some things on Griffin's Eleven. I'd like to have this whole story finished by Christmas, and I'm adhering to a weekly posting schedule for this. So, yes, it will be finished.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Monsters vs. Aliens.


End file.
